I meant to post this on St. Patrick's Day, oh well, two weeks late it will have to be. In case you can't tell, that's a leprechaun on the right and a little bus friend for him to play with. I love it when the little man draws, he is getting more confident about his skills nowadays. He used to get so frustrated when pictures didn't come out the way he saw them in his head. I have another cute drawing he did for his big big sister with bunnies on it, I think I am going to try to embroider it on a canvas tote. If I can figure out how to transfer the drawing onto the fabric. I'm sure if I Google it, something will come up.

I've calmed down about the school situation, the open enrollment for our second choice school starts tomorrow. Not sure when we'll find out if she gets in there or not. I have been tinkering around with the idea of home schooling her and my daughter says she's willing to try too if we end up going that route, but I was worried about what my husband would say and he's totally for it so that's a relief anyway. My mouth, however, is still vexing me. It's still really sore and I have to keep taking Motrin to keep the pain at bay.

Easter was nice, although the annual Easter egg hunt that is held at the Historical Village was kind of a bummer. Due to the frozen solid snow on the ground, they had to hold the event in the playhouse with eggs scattered all over the floor. Not very challenging this year, then we turned our eggs in to be exchanged for candy and stuffed toys. We were late so our kids only got bubbles and the rest of the picked over reject candy and no stuffed bunnies. Oh well, it's not like we needed more.

The kids loved their mama made bunnies and the crocheted ice cream cones were a hit also. Yay!
The easter egg hunt held in our own yard was more challenging and as it has been for the last few years....very COLD! The lake is still frozen solid so the Man took the kids out for a romp while the snow was coming down pretty hard. They were all intrigued by the broken ice waves but the man was too nervous to let them go inside.

Our trip was wonderful until we got home and everything turned to crap.
Monday: Return home from up north
Tuesday: Take the kids to Ikea to look for new silverware
Things are still good, right?
Here comes Wednesday: Upper right tooth that has been bothering me for a week has gotten much worse so I begrudgingly make an appt with a dentist. Go to dentist and find out I have several cavities, some under the old silver fillings, some in front, some in between. Also a really bad upper left tooth that died months ago can still be saved but it will take a root canal and a crown. Some other teeth need the root canals and crowns too. The cost will exceed $5,000. Oh good, what a bargain. Guess what? We can't afford that! We decide to pull the worst tooth, and after much twisting, turning and breaking, the tooth is out. The worst part of that was the numbing shot that went into the roof of my mouth. OUCH!
The rest of this day and the following two days are spent with me in pain, being grouchy and not so pleasant to my kids. This afternoon, the Man comes home and is nice to me and I tell him how rotten I feel, he sympathizes. I go to get the mail and see that the results of the lottery from the high school we really want the oldest girl to attend has arrived. I say a prayer to the universe and open the letter.
Hello, this is to inform you that your number is 360

It goes on to say that anyone with 1-135 will definitely be going to the school

The next group of 135-160 will be on the immediate wait list

The next group of 161 and higher (that's us, we're HIGHER, we're FREAKIN' 360) we're on the long term wait list. The list also known as the no chance in hell of ever getting into this school list. I am pissed, I would have loved to have had the damn luck just for once! just once!

Wasn't that a fun way to end this mighty crappy week? I think so too.

I went on an vintage stuffed toy pattern buying spree last summer and ended up only making one thing so I decided to break them out and try again. I chose the animals on wheels pattern. Making the animals was the easy part, 3 pieces whipped stitched together and stuffed, I know how to do that. Here comes the hard part for me, attaching the wheels. The directions call for cardboard wheels that you make yourself, a 1/4" dowel, 4 small spools and 4 upholstery nails. Here is where I am totally stymied, the directions are all fairly clear (except the spool size where they just say "regular spool" huh?) but I can't seem to think ahead as to how this will work, so I've stopped. Plus, I need an ice pick or an awl to poke the holes in the stuffies to insert the dowels. I also decided to buy wooden wheels but they are much smaller in diameter than the cardboard wheels would be. So, I'm not sure where I'm going with that either.

Oh, and the other problem? The darn elephant is way too front heavy and it seems as though it will tip forward. I had to break down and ask the husband to help out with it. I hate doing that. He is busy with his own projects and I should be able to do this, it really doesn't seem that hard. Feh....

Here they are waiting to be pierced. Scotty needs a nose, eyes and his collar, Ellie needs her ears sewn on (which will make her even more front heavy) and her blanket sewn on, haven't decided what to use for that yet. I may use some bits of an old felted sweater I have laying around. Note the cute pattern pictures, their Ellie is curvier than mine. I hope she looks more elephantine with her ears on. Yes, I realize it is pure folly to make a wheeled toy with white felt. It was all I had for a scotty dog, brown just seemed wrong and I was out of black *and* grey. Note that Ellie is green, so I guess Scotty could have been a totally off color too. I am uphappy with the stuffing in their necks, it looks a little wobbly. hmmm...sorry to be such a whiner about this. I hope to like them better when I actually finish. Maybe this is another reason I avoid WIP posts?

I have been sticking with Weight Watchers much better this past week and I was happy to see a weight loss at my meeting yesterday. I forgot how much it helps just to write down and keep track of what I'm putting in my mouth. My first goal is to lose 10% of my beginning weight. I won't say how much that is, because any mathematical type will be able to figure out how much I weighed when I started this two weeks ago.

It occurred to me that I don't show pictures of
works in progress. That's usually because once I start something, I
just want it done and I think of nothing else. But I had some downtime in between making these bunnies so I snapped this shot. It took a bit of maneuvering to get a picture that doesn't show what an enormous mess is all around but I might have managed it. These two guys are waiting for their brother to be finished. I cribbed the design from a few bunnies I saw online, is that ok if you're just making them for yourself and not selling them? I hope so. Anyway, I haven't decided which kid gets which bunny. I was only going to make 2 because oldest girl has repeatedly stated that she has too many stuffed animals. But, I could not bring myself not to make one for her. Plus, I
think she may feel a little left out if she doesn't get one too. She's straddling that fence between childhood and teenhood and all that, right?

I *just* found out that my middle girl's teacher is retiring this year, she goes to a Montessori school and they stay in one class for 3 years. Well, this is my girls first year, so she is out a teacher. I am so so upset about this. We love her teacher, she has been teaching Montessori for over 20 years. UGH! I really don't want my daughter to have a brand new teacher next year. It's not that she can't adjust to a new teacher but the person they hire probably won't be as Montessori oriented. I'm not sure what we're going to do now. I'm already anxious about where my oldest is going to go for high school in the fall. Darn this school stuff, and the little guy starts kindy this September. That is going to be tough for me to handle, I think.

I'm so proud of my girl.

The ice show was a success. She was great, she went to every practice, every show (there were 4 performances) without complaint and she had fun and she was good in all 5 of the routines she was in. I think skating has been so good for her. Not only can she be athletic, but she can learn to be comfortable performing in front of other people. Which, for my self-conscious 13 year old, is very important. One of the coaches said he felt she really came out of her shell this year. I noticed that too. For instance, she was in a 'Thriller' routine with a ton of people and they had to do a lot of dance moves. You know the ones. Instead of trying to get lost in the crowd and barely doing the dancing part, she was putting in quite a bit of effort and was not hiding.

The pictures are from yesterday, we didn't get many good action shots on the ice. It's hard when your far away and can't use the flash.

Things are stressed around here lately, I'm having some weird health issues. I don't think it's anything serious. I hope.
But it's more annoying right now than troubling, I am going to see my doctor about it next week. I am beating myself up about my health because I think so many of my current problems are due to my weight, my poor eating habits and my lack of exercise. I know all this yet I don't do anything to help myself. I feel lazy and irresponsible and I do blame myself for all of my problems. I joined Weight Watchers again last week, was sticking to the program, counting my points, tracking my food intake and I weighed in yesterday to see a .4 pound weight loss. I was expecting more. Today I ate whatever I wanted. Very mature of me, right?
more sighs.....guess I'll go watch Reaper.

Wow, look at Santa down there! It has been a very long time since I've been here, maybe I burned myself out with all that posting in December? Or maybe I've been to busy to blog? Yeah, right. Nope, just plain and simple laziness. Instead of catching up, I'll just get right to what is going on now. We're gearing up for the oldest daughter's big figure skating show this weekend. She has had some kind of practice or ice show related event every day for the past couple of weeks. This week is the busiest. She is in 5(!) routines this year, her most ever. I am really excited to see the show come together this weekend. I've only seen bits and pieces at the practices, it will be so different with the lights and props. This year's theme is 'The British Invasion/American Rock n Roll'.
It basically means they are skating to a bunch of oldies, which isn't so bad. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Queen are good but they also threw Neil Diamond and Grand Funk Railroad in there. Then they jump to the 80s with 'Thriller'.

She joined the synchronized skating team this year, they are a fledgling group but their coach hopes they can compete someday. I'm not so sure if she will want to do that, but we'll see when the time comes. They are doing pretty well, but my girl often complains about the girls who don't pull their weight and just sort of get pulled along by everyone else, she gets very annoyed.

Little boy starts T-ball in a few weeks, he really wants to do soccer again but our recreation department only does soccer in the fall, so he's a little bummed and very worried that he'll have to know everything about baseball to play. Poor guy, I've been assuring him that's not the case, I hope I get through to him.

In the crafty department, I've been crocheting a lot. Making mostly amigurumi. Oldest girl wants to learn two to crochet, I'm excited to teach her. She gets a little impatient though when she can't do it perfectly immediately. *sigh*